Hi, at 1:31:00 on this stream a member asks a question about leaving two buds after doing spring pruning.
Can someone clear this up please? So during refinement i thought we had to let the spring growth elongate to run out the strongest energy during the initial push? But Ryan mentions prune it back to the base with the whorles and select two correct? If not that tip is toast? And you’ll need to remove all the branch and prune it back to interior buds?
Thanks
Assuming I understood what your asking then by pruning back to two before it pushes out in the spring, would reduce the excess energy stored at the tips…if you missed that timing the same concept would apply to reduce the energy by letting it run out garden off then reduce back to two… So I think your answer is both…they can accomplish roughly the same thing. Obviously if nail the first one and the tree is vigorous enough you can rinse and repeat…I believe Ryan claims he gets 3 flushes on his latch in PNW. I don’t have anything in refinement so I could also be misunderstanding this
A lot has to do with the overall health of the tree.
It Also depends on how much of the tree is being pruned.
Personally, I also look to see how healthy the buds look.
In spring, if I want to cut back the branch to get proximal ramification that I wait until the buds are swelling and look super healthy. I’ve learned to cut back aggressively close to the trunk because if you don’t start ramification approximately close to the trunk on Primary branches, then you can’t ever get it unless you remove the entire branch later on. in other words, the tree is going to push distally and will not grow branches proximal to the trunk unless the branch is cut back completely.
New growth always happens at the tip of the branch not close to the trunk. The only way to change this is to prune back aggressively to one or two buds as you mentioned preferably this process is started early in the trees life so you don’t have to cut large branches
I learned this from Peter Tea.
If my tree is not booming with health, then I limit how much cut back I do to get more ramification.
When I cut back branches to proximal division, I usually leave other foliage to support the tree pad.
As super healthy tree can be cut back aggressively and it will start new branches for the year repair.
It’s helpful if you can include some pictures.